U.S. patent application number 10/918929 was filed with the patent office on 2005-02-24 for updating information content onto small display.
This patent application is currently assigned to Nokia Corporation. Invention is credited to Makela, Mikko K..
Application Number | 20050044484 10/918929 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34196230 |
Filed Date | 2005-02-24 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050044484 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Makela, Mikko K. |
February 24, 2005 |
Updating information content onto small display
Abstract
A method for adapting information content of an electronic
document onto the electronic device display, the design of the
information content of the document being arranged for presentation
on a larger display. The electronic document is downloaded into the
memory and the network address of the document is compared with the
network address of a preceding document. If the domain address of
the downloaded document differs from the domain address of the
preceding document, the downloaded document is shown miniaturized
on the display of the device. If the domain addresses are the same,
the information content of said document is compared with the
information content of any one document defined as the reference
document. If there is a change in the information content that
exceeds the predetermined limit value, the downloaded electronic
document is presented on the display such that the change will be
updated on the display.
Inventors: |
Makela, Mikko K.; (Tampere,
FI) |
Correspondence
Address: |
Crawford Maunu PLLC
Suite 390
1270 Northland Drive
St. Paul
MN
55120
US
|
Assignee: |
Nokia Corporation
|
Family ID: |
34196230 |
Appl. No.: |
10/918929 |
Filed: |
August 16, 2004 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
715/229 ;
707/E17.121; 715/234; 715/252 |
Current CPC
Class: |
G09G 2340/145 20130101;
G06F 16/9577 20190101 |
Class at
Publication: |
715/501.1 |
International
Class: |
G06F 017/21 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Aug 19, 2003 |
FI |
20031169 |
Mar 30, 2004 |
FI |
20045112 |
Claims
1. A method for arranging information content comprised by an
electronic document on the display of an electronic device, the
design of the information content of the electronic document being
arranged for presentation on a larger display than the display of
said electronic device, the method comprising: starting to download
said electronic document in a memory of the electronic device;
comparing the network address of said electronic document with the
network address of a previous electronic document presented on the
display of said electronic device; and in response to the network
address of said electronic document to be loaded differing from the
network address of said previous electronic document, presenting
said electronic document to be loaded in a miniaturized format on
the display of the electronic device.
2. A method for arranging information content comprised by an
electronic document on the display of an electronic device, the
design of the information content being arranged for presentation
on a larger display than the display of said electronic device, the
method comprising: receiving on an external server a download
request made by the electronic device for transmitting the
electronic document to the electronic device; comparing the network
address of said electronic document with the network address of the
preceding electronic document shown on the display of said
electronic device; in response to the network address of said
electronic document to be downloaded differing from the network
address of said preceding electronic document, forming a miniature
view of said electronic document defined in the download request;
and transmitting said miniature view to the electronic device for
presentation on its display.
3. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said network address is
the domain address or a directory path address of the document.
4. A method as claimed in claim 1, further comprising in response
to the network address of said electronic document and the network
address of said previous electronic document comprising the same
domain address, comparing in said electronic device the information
content of the electronic document with the information content of
an electronic document defined as a reference document; and in
response to the information content of said electronic document to
be downloaded differing from the information content of said
reference document to exceed a predetermined limit value,
presenting said electronic document to be downloaded on the display
of the electronic device such that a first area where difference in
information content exceeds said limit value will be updated on the
display.
5. A method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising comparing the
information content of said electronic document with the
information content of the electronic document defined as the
reference document comprised by the cache memory of the server or
of the browser program of the electronic device.
6. A method as claimed in claim in claim 4, further comprising
defining as the reference document the preceding electronic
document locating in the cache memory and shown on the display of
the electronic device.
7. A method as claimed in claim 6, further comprising considering
in the comparison the definition language text element fields and
image elements whose size exceeds a predetermined limit value in
the documents.
8. A method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising comparing the
information contents of said electronic document and said reference
document on the basis of the markup language source code of the
documents.
9. A method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising in response
to a command from the user of the terminal equipment, updating on
the display of the electronic device a next area in said electronic
document to be downloaded where difference in the information
content exceeds said limit value.
10. A method as claimed in claim 3, further comprising presenting
said electronic document to be downloaded on the display of the
electronic device from the beginning in response to any one of the
following conditions: the information content of said electronic
document does not differ from the information content of said
reference document to exceed the predetermined limit value; or in
the cache memory, there is no document defined as the reference
document.
11. An electronic device comprising a display in operational
connection with the device; a browser program for adapting the
information content of the electronic document onto said display;
means for loading said electronic document into the memory; means
for comparing the network address of said electronic document with
the network address of a previous electronic document shown on the
display of said electronic device; and means for presenting said
electronic document to be downloaded as a miniature view in
response to the network address of said electronic document to be
downloaded differing from the network address of said previous
electronic document.
12. An electronic device as claimed in claim 11, further comprising
means for comparing the information content of said electronic
document with the information content of any one electronic
document defined as the reference document, and means for
presenting said electronic document to be downloaded on the display
such that a first area of said electronic document to be downloaded
where the difference in the information content exceeds the
predetermined limit value will be updated on the display.
13. An electronic device as claimed in claim 11, wherein said
network address is the domain address or a directory path address
of the document.
14. An electronic device as claimed in claim 12, wherein said means
for comparing the information content is arranged to compare the
information content of said electronic document with the
information content of the electronic document defined as the
reference document comprised by the cache memory of the server or
of the browser program of the electronic device.
15. An electronic device as claimed in claim 12, wherein said
reference document is a preceding electronic document locating in
the cache memory and shown on the display of the electronic
device.
16. An electronic device as claimed in claim 14, wherein said means
for comparing the information content is arranged to compare the
information contents of said electronic document and said reference
document on the basis of the markup language source code of the
documents.
17. An electronic device as claimed in claim 16, wherein said means
for comparing the information content is arranged to consider in
the comparison the definition language text element fields and
image elements whose size exceeds a predetermined limit value in
the documents.
18. An electronic device as claimed in claim 14, wherein said means
for presenting said electronic document is arranged, in response to
a command from the user of the terminal equipment, to update on the
display of the electronic device a next area in said electronic
document to be downloaded where difference in the information
content exceeds said limit value.
19. An electronic device as claimed in claim 14, wherein said means
for presenting said electronic document is arranged to present said
electronic document to be downloaded on the display of the
electronic device from the beginning in response to any one of the
following conditions: the information content of said electronic
document does not differ from the information content of said
reference document to exceed the predetermined limit value; or in
the cache memory, there is no document defined as the reference
document.
20. A software product, which, loaded in an electronic device, is
arranged to control the adaptation of the information content of an
electronic document to be loaded in the memory of the electronic
device onto the display of the electronic device, the software
product comprising a computer program code section for comparing
the network address of said electronic document with the network
address of a previous electronic document shown on the display of
said electronic device; and a computer program code section for
showing said electronic document to be downloaded on the display as
a miniature view in response to the network address of said
electronic document to be downloaded differing from the network
address of said previous electronic document.
21. A software product as claimed in claim 20, further comprising a
computer program code section for comparing the information content
of said electronic document with the information content of any one
electronic document defined as the reference document; and a
computer program code section for presenting said electronic
document to be downloaded on the display such that a first area of
the electronic document where the difference in the information
content exceeds the predetermined limit value will be updated on
the display.
22. A software product as claimed in claim 21, wherein said
computer program code section for comparing the information content
is arranged to compare the information content of said electronic
document with the information content of the electronic document
defined as the reference document comprised by the cache memory of
the server or of the browser program of the electronic device.
23. A software product as claimed in claim 22, wherein said
computer program code section for comparing the information content
further includes a computer program code section for comparing the
information contents of said electronic document and said reference
document on the basis of the markup language source code of the
documents.
24. A software product as claimed in claim 23, wherein said
computer program code section for comparing the information content
further includes a computer program code section for considering in
the comparison the definition language text element fields and
image elements whose size exceeds a predetermined limit value in
the documents.
25. A software product as claimed in claim 21, wherein said
computer program code section for presenting said electronic
document is arranged to control the electronic device to present
said electronic document to be downloaded on the display of the
electronic device from the beginning in response to any one of the
following conditions: the information content of said electronic
document does not differ from the information content of said
reference document to exceed the predetermined limit value; or in
the cache memory, there is no document defined as the reference
document.
26. A network element arranged to fitting information content
comprised by an electronic document onto the display of an
electronic device, formatting of the information content of the
electronic document being adapted to be shown on a display larger
than that of said electronic device; the network element comprising
means for receiving a downloading request presented by the
electronic device for transmitting an electronic document to the
device; means for comparing the network address of said electronic
document with the network address of the preceding electronic
document shown on the display of said electronic device; means for
forming a miniature view of said electronic document defined in the
download request, if the network address of said electronic
document to be downloaded differs from the network address of said
preceding electronic document; and means for transmitting said
miniature view to the electronic device for presentation on its
display.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The invention relates to devices provided with displays and,
in particular, to updating large information content onto a
substantially smaller display of the device.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The number of operations to be performed with wireless
terminal equipment, such as a mobile station, has increased
considerably as a result of the development in mobile technology.
The mobile station is no longer used for calls alone, but
information can be processed and presented by means of the mobile
station in more and more versatile manners. One of the most wanted
features of the wireless terminal equipment is a possibility to use
Internet services, such as e-mail and graphic web pages. Many other
small, portable terminal devices (so-called PDA devices) also
comprise means, for instance a WLAN card or a wired connection, for
establishing a connection to the Internet.
[0003] The layout and usability of almost all graphical services on
the Internet are optimised in view of the large display of a
desktop computer. Even though a plurality of wireless terminal
equipment, such as a plurality of mobile stations, comprise means
for establishing an Internet connection, the typically small size
of the wireless terminal equipment causes problems, particularly
when graphical services are used. Known resolutions of mobile
station displays include, for instance, 128.times.128/160 and
176.times.208 pixels, whereas web pages are adapted to displays
having the resolution of e.g. 800.times.600, 1024.times.768 or up
to 1280.times.960 pixels. Consequently, only a small part of the
web page can be presented at a time on the display of the wireless
terminal equipment and the user gets very little information in one
go.
[0004] For some mobile stations, such as those using Nokia.RTM.
Series 60 platform, there are browser programs (e.g. Web Viewer.TM.
and Series 60 platform-specific browser) available, which are able
to adapt the content of a web page onto a small display of the
mobile station such that the line width of the web page (800, 1024
or 1280 pixels, for instance) are adjusted for a plurality of lines
(176 pixels) on the mobile station display and the elements that
exceed the display width, such as image files, are scaled into the
display width. Thus, the page need not be scrolled in the
horizontal direction, but in the vertical direction the page
becomes easily very long and it is cumbersome to scroll it.
[0005] In addition, the typical web page design causes problems in
connection with the above-described procedure. Typically, the web
pages are designed such that the title and the control data of the
pages appear on the top lines of the page and the so-called
navigation bar is located on the left or on the top of the page.
Thus, when the content of a web page is arranged onto a small
display of the mobile station in the above-described manner by
distributing the line width of the web page over a plurality of
lines of the mobile station display, these typically unchanged data
on each page, i.e. the title and control data and the keys on the
navigation bar, are always shown first on the display. For
instance, if the user selects a link on the navigation bar, the web
page from behind that link is updated to the mobile station, but
the user will first see on the display the same unchanged data as
before the link selection. In that case the user cannot know,
whether the desired web page is updated on the display but he or
she must scroll the page downwards to find this out. Moreover, the
user cannot know, at which point of the page the new content is
updated, but he or she is compelled to scroll the display to find
the information and nevertheless may overlook the updated
information content.
[0006] One solution presented to these problems is a procedure
(e.g. Microsoft.RTM. SmartView), which presents a
page-width-adapted miniature view of the whole Web page, from which
miniature view the user may select some areas for viewing. Then,
the selected area of the page is presented on the display suitably
zoomed.
[0007] However, this procedure has several drawbacks, particularly
if it is applied to wireless terminal equipment with a small
display every time a new page is downloaded. The miniature view of
the web page adapted to a small display is so small that it is
difficult to distinguish therefrom any detail the user might like
to watch closer in enlargement. In addition, it takes a
considerable amount of processing power to scale web pages as image
files, and thus the continuous, alternating scaling of pages causes
considerable loading to current wireless terminal equipment having
limited processing power. If the scaling is performed on a network
server, extra data transmission between the equipment and the
server is produced. Further, this procedure is not feasible in
terms of usability, because every time a new page is downloaded,
the user is expected to carry out a large number of operations so
as to browse the pages.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0008] Now there is invented a method and equipment implementing
the method, by which it is possible to improve the visual
perspicuity of how information content is updated on small
displays. Various aspects of the invention include a method, an
electronic device and a computer program, which are characterized
by what is stated in the independent claims. Various embodiments of
the invention are disclosed in the dependent claims.
[0009] The invention is based on the idea that information content
comprised by an electronic document, the design of the information
content being typically arranged for presentation on a larger
display than the one concerned, is arranged on the display of an
electronic device by starting to load said electronic document in a
memory of the electronic device and by comparing the network
address of said electronic document with the network address of a
previous electronic document presented on the display of said
electronic device. If the domain address of said electronic
document differs from the domain address of said previous
electronic document, the downloaded document is presented on the
display as a miniature view.
[0010] If the electronic document to be downloaded and said
preceding electronic document are within the same domain address,
then, according to an embodiment of the invention, the information
content of said electronic document to be downloaded is compared
with the information content of an electronic document that is
defined as a reference document, and if the information content of
said electronic document differs from the information content of
said reference document to exceed a defined limit value, said
downloaded electronic document is presented on the display of the
electronic device such that the first area whose information
content differs more than said limit value is updated on the
display.
[0011] An alternative embodiment is a method for arranging
information content comprised by an electronic document onto the
display of an electronic device, the design of the information
content comprised by the electronic document being arranged for
presentation on a larger display than the display of said
electronic device. In this method an external server receives a
loading request from an electronic device for transmitting an
electronic document to the electronic device and compares the
network address of said electronic document with the network
address of the preceding electronic document presented on the
display of said electronic device. If the domain address of the
electronic document to be downloaded differs from the domain
address of said preceding electronic document, a miniature view is
formed from the electronic document defined in said loading request
and said miniature view is sent to the electronic device for
presentation on its display.
[0012] According to one embodiment of the invention the information
content of said electronic document is compared with the
information content of an electronic document, defined as a
reference document, comprised by the cache memory of the browser
program of the electronic device or of the server.
[0013] According to one embodiment of the invention an electronic
document locating in a cache memory and shown as preceding document
on the display of an electronic device is defined as a reference
document.
[0014] According to one embodiment of the invention information
contents of said electronic document and said reference document
are compared on the basis of a markup-language source code of the
documents.
[0015] According to one embodiment the comparison takes into
account markup-language text element fields of the documents and
image elements whose sizes exceed a determined limit value.
[0016] According to one embodiment of the invention, in response to
a command from the user of the terminal equipment a next area in
said electronic document to be downloaded where the information
content exceeds said limit value is updated onto the display of the
electronic device.
[0017] According to one embodiment of the invention, if said
electronic document and said reference document have the same
domain address, said electronic document to be downloaded is
presented on the display of the electronic device from the very
beginning in response to at least any one of the following
conditions:
[0018] the information content of said electronic document does not
differ from the information content of said reference document to
exceed a predetermined limit value; or
[0019] in a cache memory there is no document defined as a
reference document.
[0020] The method and the device of the invention have an advantage
that they allow in particular the user of a device having a small
display to find the desired information content in the documents in
an illustrative and fast manner. A further advantage is that as
conversion of the document into an image file is only performed
when the domain address of the downloaded page differs from the
domain address of a previous document, the need for conversions is
considerably reduced. Another further advantage is that the
usability of the device improves, because the mandatory interaction
between the user and the device is reduced, because the miniature
view is not presented every time. An advantage with one embodiment
of the invention is that as the display is automatically updated to
show on the display information that is new over the reference
document, the need for scrolling the display reduces and the user
can immediately study the updated information. Yet another
advantage is that the procedure provides the user with an immediate
intuitive response, whether the loading of the desired page to the
terminal equipment was successful. An alternative embodiment of the
invention has an advantage that the comparison between the domain
addresses can be carried out on a network server already, whereby
the network server can also form a miniature view and transmit it
to the terminal equipment, which saves the resources of the
terminal equipment.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0021] In the following the invention will be described in greater
detail in connection with preferred embodiments, with reference to
the attached drawings, in which
[0022] FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an electronic device, to which
the invention can be applied;
[0023] FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate a web page designed for a high
display resolution and correspondingly a portion of the page that
can be presented at a time on a substantially smaller display;
and
[0024] FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a procedure of a preferred
embodiment of the invention for updating a page automatically on
the display.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
[0025] In the following the invention will be described in greater
detail using a portable electronic device with a small display as
an illustrative example. The same inventive idea can be applied,
however, to any presentation solution of electronic documents, in
which the document to be presented is not applicable as such to be
presented on the display used. Thus, the described electronic
device and the display operationally connected thereto should be
understood in broad terms, which cover all presentation solutions
of this kind.
[0026] FIG. 1 shows a general block diagram of a portable
electronic device (ED), which may be a wireless mobile station or a
PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) device, for instance, and to which
the invention can be applied.
[0027] The electronic device (ED) comprises a central unit (CPU), a
memory (MEM) and an I/O system (I/O). All the necessary data is
stored in the memory (MEM) of the device. The memory (MEM) includes
a read memory portion, which may be ROM memory, for instance, and a
write memory portion, which may consist of RAM (Random Access
Memory) and/or FLASH memory. Through the I/O system (I/O) the
device communicates with other devices, the network and the user,
among other things. The user interface (UI), which is part of the
I/O system (I/O), comprises a necessary interface for communication
with the user, such as a display, a keypad, a loudspeaker and/or a
microphone. Data obtained from the various components of the device
are conveyed to the central unit (CPU), which processes the
received data in a desired manner. The display can be integrated
with said electronic device or it can be a separate display, which
is operationally connected to said electronic device through either
a wired connection or a wireless connection.
[0028] Intelligent wireless terminal equipment generally employ a
platform, on which it is possible to create equipment software and
which enables a variety of mobile applications and services. The
platform typically comprises a graphical user interface, and
applications and technologies built, for instance, on the Symbian
operating system, such as multimedia messaging service (MMS), XHTML
(Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) browsing and Java. The
platform enables the software developers, the operators and the
device manufacturers to create advantageously thereon applications
of their own, which are compatible with different devices and
networks.
[0029] One commonly used platform for mobile stations is Nokia.RTM.
Series 60 Platform, which many other manufacturers of mobile
stations have also adopted for use. The display size used on the
Series 60 Platform is defined to be 176.times.208 pixels.
[0030] FIGS. 2a and 2b illustrate how limited this display is when
information content arranged for a large display is presented. FIG.
2a shows a web page designed for a display resolution of
800.times.600 pixels. FIG. 2b substantially shows the page portion
which can be presented at a time with a display resolution of
176.times.208 pixels. Thus, FIG. 2b does not show how the page of
FIG. 2a would actually be downloaded on said display of
176.times.208 pixels, because the presentation mode is
application-specific. The page can be presented in its original
form without any optimisation modifications, as in FIG. 2b, or the
page can be optimised, for instance, in the above-described manner
by distributing the page width onto a plurality of lines on the
display of the mobile station. In page optimisation, the navigation
bar 200 on the top of FIG. 2a would typically be shown completely
on the display of 176.times.208 pixels, which further reduces the
space available for presenting other information of the page at a
time and increases the need for page scrolling, and thus makes it
more difficult to find the desired information. Likewise, apart
from the navigation bar, only a small part of the web page updated
from behind the link is visible, and consequently the user cannot
know where on the page the new desired content is updated.
[0031] To solve this problem, a procedure has been developed to
find desired information content in the documents, which cannot be
presented in their original size on the display. The procedure can
also be applied in a situation, where the document is zoomed to an
extent that it is too big to be presented in its entirety on the
display. In the procedure of the invention the network address of a
document to be downloaded into the browser program of the terminal
equipment is first compared with the network address of the
preceding document used by the browser program. So, if the domain
address of the page to be downloaded differs from the domain
address of said preceding document, the document to be downloaded
is presented as a miniature view on the display of the equipment.
The term "domain" refers to a group of computers whose host names
are within the common domain name. The document to be downloaded
can also be retrieved from the device's own file system, in which
case the directory path of the file system corresponds to the
network address.
[0032] If the electronic document to be downloaded and said
preceding electronic document are within the same domain name, the
page to be downloaded is updated on the display of the wireless
terminal equipment such that in case the information contents of
the downloaded page of the browser program and of a previous,
typically the preceding, page selected as a reference document
differ sufficiently from one another, the page to be downloaded is
updated on the display automatically such that the first area whose
information content has changed sufficiently will be shown on the
display. Advantageously this automatic focusing of the information
content does not require any operations on the part of the user.
Automatic focusing can be performed either by updating a new page
from the very beginning and scrolling thereafter the display to
said first area where the information content is sufficiently
changed or by updating said first area where the information
content is sufficiently changed directly onto the display.
[0033] It should be noted that the document comparison can be
performed either when the document to be downloaded is fully
downloaded in the memory of the device, or alternatively, the
comparison can be started in the course of the loading by making
the comparison at the same pace as a new document is being loaded
in the memory of the device. The last mentioned manner speeds up
the automatic focusing of the information content, in particular in
wireless terminal equipments, because for larger documents loading
delays on wireless connections may be quite considerable. The last
mentioned manner is also advantageously applicable to known browser
programs of wireless devices, which programs typically start
updating of a page on a display even before the page is fully
downloaded.
[0034] In order that the document downloaded in the browser program
could be presented as a scalable document it is typically to be
converted to an image file, which requires considerable processing
resources of the converting device. Because the conversion is only
performed when the domain address of the downloaded page differs
from the domain address of the preceding page, the need for
conversion reduces considerably, the major part of the web page
browsing typically taking place within the same domain
addresses.
[0035] The user may select from the miniature view presented on the
display a desired area for a closer look, whereby this area is
presented sufficiently zoomed on the display and the original lines
optionally distributed into a plurality of narrower lines. Because
it may be difficult to distinguish the changed information content
in the miniature view, it can be highlighted on the display, for
instance using a text or a background of different colour. Thus,
instead of automatic focusing, the user is first shown only the
area, where the first change in the document is found.
[0036] The above-described procedure for finding the desired
information content in the documents allow the user of a device
with a small display to find information in an illustrative and
fast manner. On moving over to a totally new document (new domain
address) the user is provided with a general view in a miniature
format of the document, whereby the user can quickly visualise the
structure and the information content of the document on a general
level. When the user then selects from this miniature view, for
instance, a hyperlink of a view that opened through the area
selected from the miniature view, the miniature is no longer used
but the above-described automatic focusing to the area to be viewed
will take place.
[0037] According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, by
activating a given function with a click of a mouse or some other
indicator, the user may update the page on the display
automatically such that a next area with sufficiently changed
information content is shown on the display. Thus, the user is able
to go through quickly the changed areas of the page or the
document.
[0038] According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, in
particular the comparison between the web page information contents
is performed between the information content of the downloaded page
and that of the preceding page in the cache memory of the browser
program. Thus, the changes, if any, in visual layout of the pages
are omitted from the comparison. This has a particular advantage in
the above-described solution, in which the content of a normal-size
web page is adjusted onto a small display of a mobile station such
that the line width of the web page is arranged onto a plurality of
lines on the mobile station display. Naturally, it will be
necessary to modify the page layout settings, but advantageously it
does not affect the comparison according to the invention.
[0039] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the
reference document need not necessarily be the preceding browsed
page, but the comparison can be made with a given basic page or
document, which is advantageously defined in accordance with the
page or directory structure. For instance, when moving over from
document a://aaa/aaa.html" to document "a://aaa/bbb.html" the
reference item used will be the basic document "a://index.html".
Owing to the page or directory structure, comparison of this kind
may in some cases be more advantageous to illustrate the
differences between the documents.
[0040] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the
comparison is based on the markup language source code of the pages
and the comparison is performed between the contents of given
elements thereof. Typically, the web pages are defined as HTML
(HyperText Markup Language) source code, which comprises element
definitions for all text and image fields appearing on the pages as
well as for various layouts thereof. The comparison takes into
account at least all text element fields and image elements
outputted on the display. It should be noted that the procedure of
the invention is not restricted only to the HTML documents but it
can be applied to any structural documents whose metadata enables
comparison between document contents. These documents include, for
instance, XML (Extensible Markup Language) and XHTML (Extensible
Hypertext Markup Language) files as well as Microsoft.RTM. Word and
Adobe.RTM. PDF documents. So-called rich text and plain text
documents can also be compared with one another in the
above-described manner, which makes it possible to find recent
changes in bus or train timetables, for instance. Thus, the term
"browser program" should also be interpreted in a broad sense to
include, in addition to conventional web browser programs, such as
web browsers presenting HTML-based Internet pages, also application
programs presenting structural documents, such as a plurality of
word processing programs.
[0041] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the
comparison can be performed either in the terminal equipment or on
the download server of the network or both. For instance, the Web
Viewer.TM. browser which adapts the content of a normal-sized web
page in the above-described manner onto the small display of a
mobile station by distributing the line width of the web page over
a plurality of lines on the display of the mobile station, utilizes
the optimisation server locating in the network, which converts the
web page into a layout that is suitable for a narrow display and
thus speeds up the downloading of the page. Advantageously the
optimisation server is also aware of the previous web page
downloaded by the terminal equipment and the source code thereof.
Hence, the above-described comparison can be performed already on
said optimisation server and the new page can be provided with an
indication where in the document the first sufficiently changed
information content is found. The terminal equipment can utilize
this indication for updating the changed information content on the
display.
[0042] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the
server transmits to the terminal equipment only the information
that has changed with respect to the preceding page, in response to
which the browser program uses the preceding page as a base and
updates the changed portions thereon. Advantageously this reduces
the network load, because the amount of data to be transmitted over
the network is often substantially smaller than in transmitting the
whole page. Information on the changed information content can be
transmitted using "document fragment identifier" indicators of HTML
version 4.01, for instance, whereby the procedure of the invention
can be applied by means of the server also to those old browser
programs, for instance, that do not support the method
themselves.
[0043] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, the
terminal equipment comprises user-controllable settings, by means
of which the above-described document presentation formats can be
controlled. The settings may comprise a function, according to
which a miniature view is not shown at any stage, but an automatic
transfer always takes place to the document area where the first
sufficiently changed content can be found. Correspondingly, said
settings may control the terminal equipment to always show a
miniature view of the page first. Further, an alternative may be to
show a miniature view of the first page of a given domain address
group and the rest of the pages in the same domain address group
are shown by automatically zooming to the changed content. The
setting may also control the terminal equipment to show the
documents always as such, in other words, showing the miniature
view or zooming to the changed content will not be performed at any
stage.
[0044] The procedure of the invention for finding the desired
information content will be illustrated in the following by way of
example, with reference to the flow chart of FIG. 3. In the example
of FIG. 3 the first step (comparison of domain addresses) can be
performed either in the terminal equipment or on the download
server of the network and the subsequent steps will advantageously
be performed in the terminal equipment. In addition, FIG. 3 shows
only one example of a comparison algorithm and comparison criteria
used therein. It is obvious to a person skilled in the art that the
same inventive idea can be implemented with a variety of comparison
algorithms and comparison criteria.
[0045] The starting point of the procedure shown in FIG. 3 is a
function performed by the user of the terminal equipment in the
browser program for downloading a new page to be presented with the
browser program (300). The function performed by the user may
consist, for instance, of activating a hyperlink on the preceding
page (e.g. by clicking the link with an indicator) or of writing
the URL address of a new page in the address field of the browser
program.
[0046] Downloading a new page starts the comparison algorithm,
which is performed either prior to showing the new page on the
display (or transmitting it to the terminal equipment if the
comparison takes place on the network server), or, alternatively,
in the above-described manner in the course of downloading by
comparing at the same pace as the new document is loaded in the
memory of the equipment. The first step (302) in the comparison
algorithm is to check whether the network address of the page to be
downloaded includes the same domain address as the network address
of the preceding page shown in the browser program of the terminal
device. If the network addresses do not include the same domain
address or the preceding page was not used, the page is formatted
into a miniature view, which is shown on the display (304) of the
terminal equipment.
[0047] If the network address of the page to be downloaded includes
the same domain address as the network address of the preceding
page shown in the browser program of the terminal device, it is
checked next (306), whether the metadata of the page to be
downloaded comprises instructions to update the page on the
display. It is possible that the page comparison was performed in
the above-mentioned manner on the optimisation server, which either
added an indication of changed information content to the new page
or only transmitted the changed information content without any
other data comprised by the page. In that case, the browser program
updates the new page on the display according to the updating
instructions such that the page area where said changed information
content is located will be updated substantially on the top of the
display of the terminal equipment (308).
[0048] If the metadata of the document does not comprise updating
instructions, the process proceeds to the next step (310) of the
comparison algorithm where it is checked, whether the preceding
page was stored in the cache memory of the browser program. If the
preceding page is not in the cache memory, no comparison between a
new page and the preceding page can be performed, and consequently
the new page is shown on the display such that its beginning is
visible on the display (312) and the rest of the page will appear
by scrolling the display down.
[0049] If the preceding page was stored in the cache memory, it is
checked next, whether the transfer to the new page was performed by
means of the navigation history of the browser program (314), i.e.
whether the new page is one of the preceding pages of the same
session, whereby the transfer can take place by means of
"back/forward" commands of the browser program, for instance. If
the navigation history is employed in the browsing, the comparison
between the pages is not carried out but the page is downloaded
from the point where the browsing previously ended (316).
[0050] The page to be downloaded may comprise a definition which
prevents the page from being permanently stored in the cache memory
of the browser program, and thus when the page is exited, said page
will no longer be found in the cache memory. This problem can be
circumvented, however, by storing said pages in the cache memory
for comparison such that every time said page is re-entered, the
page is downloaded again from the web. For instance, some web pages
employ so-called scripts (e.g. Java/ECMAScript) for generating
information contents. In that case the preceding page should be
processed in the comparison in the format it would be after
executing the scripts. The comparison could be advantageously
enhanced by storing the page, instead of or in addition to the
original source code, in a format optimised for comparison.
[0051] If the domain address of the new page and the preceding page
is the same, comparison between the information contents of the
pages is performed in relation to the first set comparison criteria
(318). The first comparison criteria are advantageously set such
that the contents of the pages should be sufficiently different so
as to have an effect on the updating of the new page on the
display. Advantageously the comparison is performed on the basis of
the markup language, such as HTML, source code, whereby contents of
given elements between the pages are compared. The comparison is
advantageously directed only to the information contents of the
pages, and thus changes in visual layout of the pages, for
instance, will be omitted from the comparison. The premise is that
changes in the textual content and in sufficiently large image
files will be taken into account, for instance.
[0052] In the first comparison a criterion for sufficient
difference can be, for instance, that the new page comprises at
least an eight-word sequence that differs from the preceding page
stored in the cache memory. Each new image file differing from the
preceding page can be counted as four new words, for instance. In
that case it is also possible to set a restriction that images
smaller than 30.times.30 pixels, for instance, will be omitted,
because they are typically associated with the layout and
presentation of the page and they do not affect the information
content of the page. Correspondingly, a sufficiently large image
file can be interpreted as eight words, whereby it alone can be
interpreted as a sufficiently great change. For instance, when HTML
source codes are compared, all text element fields and textual
hyperlinks (<a>) and all image elements (<img>),
selection elements (<select>) and object elements
(<object>) outputted on the display will be taken into
account, in view of the above-mentioned 30.times.30 pixel
restriction. If it is detected in the first comparison (318) that
there is a sufficient difference in the first criteria, a new page
is updated on the display such that a first area of the new page
where said sufficient difference have been detected, will be
updated substantially on the top of the display (308). Thus the
downloaded page is updated automatically on the display in such a
manner that the first sufficiently changed area is brought in the
foreground, whereby the user will immediately notice the difference
from the preceding page. Naturally the user can scroll the page in
any direction from the area updated on the display.
[0053] If the first comparison does not detect a sufficient
difference between the pages, for instance, eight consecutive
words, according to the first criteria, a second comparison can
advantageously be performed according to second criteria set for
comparison (320). In this comparison any change in the information
content, such as one new image, can be interpreted as a
sufficiently great change, whereby the page is automatically zoomed
to that area (308). If the second comparison does not find any
change between the pages, a new page is shown such that the
beginning thereof is substantially at the top of the display
(312).
[0054] According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, in
addition to the algorithm based on examining the document source
code, the search for an area with changed information content can
also be implemented by utilizing pattern recognition, whereby the
information content of images, for instance, can be taken better
into account in the comparison, and the definition of differences
in the images does not only rely on the comparison between the
titles and the sizes of the image files.
[0055] In portable terminal equipment, such as a mobile station,
the functionality of the invention can be implemented most
advantageously as browser application software, which is executed
in the central processing unit CPU and makes the terminal equipment
carry out operations according to the invention. Most
advantageously the computer program can be implemented as a plug-in
program loaded in the terminal equipment or in connection with the
browser program. Functions of the software SW can be distributed to
a plurality of separate, intercommunicating software components.
The computer program can be stored in any memory means, for
instance, on a PC hard disk or a CD-ROM, from which it can be
loaded in the memory MEM of the mobile station MS. The computer
program can also be downloaded through the network by using a
TCP/IP protocol stack, for instance. It is also possible to use
hardware solutions or a combination of hardware and software
solutions to implement the inventive means.
[0056] Thus, the computer program SW advantageously comprises a
computer program code section for comparing the network address of
said electronic document with the network address of the preceding
electronic document shown on the display of said electronic device
and a computer program code section for showing said downloaded
electronic document on the display as a miniature view in response
to the domain address of said downloaded electronic document
differing from the domain address of said preceding electronic
document.
[0057] In addition, the computer program SW may advantageously
comprise a computer program code section for comparing the
information content of said electronic document with the
information content of the preceding electronic document shown on
the display of said electronic device and a computer program code
section for showing said downloaded electronic document on the
display such that a first area of said downloaded electronic
document that differs from the information content of said
preceding electronic document to exceed a predetermined limit value
will be updated on the display.
[0058] In addition, most advantageously the above-described
features of the optimisation server in accordance with the
invention can be implemented as a computer program. In that case
the computer program advantageously comprises a computer program
code section for receiving a download request, made by an
electronic device, for transmitting an electronic document to the
electronic device, a computer program section for comparing the
domain address of said electronic document defined in the download
request with the domain address of the preceding electronic
document transmitted to the electronic device and a computer
program code section for modifying said electronic document into a
miniature view and for transmitting it to the electronic device for
presentation on the display.
[0059] It is obvious to a person skilled in the art that as
technology advances the basic ideas of the invention can be
implemented in a variety of ways. Thus, the invention and its
embodiments are not restricted to the above-described examples, but
they may vary within the scope of the claims.
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